QOTSA: 'We Definitely Took Our Rulebook and Ripped it Up'

In a recent MTV interview, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme discussed the problems band has been facing while working on their upcoming release "Like Clockwork." Homme had no intention of hiding any of the issues and even said that the album title was inspired by the group being dysfunctional.
"The inability for anything to go like clockwork was the inspiration for the album title," said the frontman. "It's because an inside joke; we'd have these great victories and then something would go south for a bit, and we'd go 'It's like clockwork!' I think a sick sense of humor is what's always been our preservation mechanism, so this time, we're using that sick sense of humor for a title."
Described as "an audio documentary of a manic year," the making of the new record was also compared to "waking up in the middle of nowhere" by Homme himself. Although he didn't go into the specific details, the singer/guitarist made it more than clear just how difficult was it for the group to make a comeback.
"There were so many things involved with making this; some of them were emotionally driven, some were sonically driven," he sighed. "We definitely took our rulebook and ripped it up, then frantically tried to put it back together to read some of those rules again."
But there was one reunion that didn't turn out as difficult as expected the return of the bassist Nick Olivieri. According to Homme, this has been possibly the easiest part of the whole process, as well as the most rewarding one.
"Collaborations look much different to an outsider than they are for us on the inside. Nick and I have been friends since a couple weeks after everything went down. People don't know that, and it would be awkward for me to run around making sure everyone knew it," the frontman said. "Nick recorded his new record at my studio, and then he was going to drop off some records and he said 'Hey, need anyone to sing backup?' And I was like 'Actually, yeah, come on in.' It's that causal, and that's a nice thing. It was easy. It's nice to know someone since you were a little kid, and still know them."
The band has recently revealed the new album cover, along with the premiere of new single "My God Is The Sun." "Like Clockwork" is scheduled for a June 4 release via Matador Records and will feature several guest appearances including the likes of Sir Elton John, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Mars Volta's Jon Theodore, Mark Lanegan and Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner.

Not trying to be controversial, but the single sounds quite par for the course than tearing up the rule book. I'll be open-minded re the rest of the album, but "My God is the Sun" doesn't seem to go with that claim.

Josh and Dave are patting each other on the back for surviving the whirlwind of "grunge/alternative" and then a decade of shitty music where no one cared about Rock & Roll, and now they've both endured and emerged victorious and continue to reign supreme in their own rights, while many of their colleagues flounder in embarrassing irrelevance, trying and failing to rehash the glory days